1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [187]
Able Seaman J. S. Bentham.
I went home expecting a hero’s welcome, but when I arrived at the house I couldn’t make anyone hear, so I went next door and the neighbours told me that my father and stepmother were away on holiday in Newquay. So I had to set off to my married sister’s in Wembley and she was suitably pleased to see me so unexpectedly. My father cut short his holiday and came home but he was far from glad to see me and instead of a welcome I was told I was an exceedingly silly boy. There I was, he said, safe in Holland for the duration and now due to my stupidity I would have to go back into the war. I told him that was the whole point of escaping. However he soon came round and I rather think he was quite proud of my exploits because that night he took me down to the local pub and spent the evening telling his friends all about my adventures. That was another good night, because everyone wanted to treat me.
But my real moment of glory came at the first pay parade after I’d returned to the Crystal Palace. On pay parade your name was called, you took a step forward smartly and advanced to the table with your cap extended to receive your pay. Of course the average sailor had only a week or two’s pay to draw, but when it came to me there was quite a bit as I had only been paid one guilder every ten days and I had eight months’ pay owing. Well! My cap was covered with golden sovereigns and you could hear the gasp from all the rookies as I marched back, for they didn’t know me from Adam, or where I had come from. I had more than twenty golden sovereigns in my cap. Did I feel rich! Of course I didn’t say anything about my self-appointed promotion, but no one questioned it, and I was never ordered to take the Leading Seaman’s badge off. Best of all, I was told that my application for a commission had been granted and I started training right away. I was cock of the walk and no mistake!
I knew I was a lucky man because I soon found out about the terrible casualties my Division had suffered in Gallipoli, and I knew full well that if our Brigade hadn’t been interned after Antwerp, I might easily have been one of them.
The five weeks that began on 22 April with the German attack at Ypres accounted for the highest casualties since the start of the war and the full cost of the landings at Gallipoli was only beginning to be known. Every day fresh casualty lists told the tale of the push at Aubers Ridge and Festubert. Nothing had been gained and all there was to show were the long, long lists of soldiers killed, missing or wounded that filled so many columns of the daily newspapers, and the shower of official telegrams that were dreaded by every family with a boy at the front. Even the sight of a telegraph boy cycling down a street could strike terror into a nervous heart.
When a telegram arrived for Jock Macleod’s family his mother was at the local VAD hospital where she worked three afternoons a week.
Miss Betty Macleod.
Friday May 21st. Both parents were out when the wire came, Mother at the hospital and Daddy playing bowls in the Trinity Fellows’ Garden, so Mollie and I set off on our bicycles to find them. Of course they both had fits. They saw us coming waving a telegram – poor Mother turned as white as a sheet and couldn’t stop shaking for ages, and Daddy got a shock too, though after the nasty turn she’d had herself Mother warned us to call out as soon as he saw us to say it was good news. The telegram was from Jock to say that he had leave and was arriving in Cambridge by the 6.15. The whole family